Restoring a 1971 Rolite Model 1500
Posted: Tue Sep 08, 2020 1:22 pmHello!
Here are a couple galleries of my progress over Labor Day Weekend:
https://imgur.com/a/1qyd9iX
https://imgur.com/a/bZt2zye
We hope to have this thing ready by spring or summer. My wife has talked for a while about getting a "canned ham" camper we could use as a guest house and we finally found one. The big idea here is that campers have always been "my thing" and she just enjoys going along with our two kids. With a vintage camper we'll finally have something we can both be excited about. This was a FB find for $1200 two weeks ago.
So far I'm finding that being a collapsable camper has some advantages when it comes to restoration. We've already taken off the walls and then it was just a matter of removing appliances, cabinets and benches. There's not much to the interior of this so all of that went really quick. It's now sitting covered in a tarp in my driveway just the top and bottom shells. The bottom-front has already been removed.
Over the winter we can rehab/redo most of this thing piece-by-piece, wall-by-wall. But that part of the project will wait until the weather gets too cold. Until then I'm going to start dismantling the top and bottom shells and start rebuilding those. The rot in the corners of the lower portion is really bad. The top isn't as bad but it's obviously been leaking a bit. And I likely need to peel off the skin and start taking the top apart to get at whatever's mounting it to the bottom so I can remove it. I'm taking copious photos and measurements as we go.
My hope is that a restoration will be sorta like building one of these from a kit. If I document well enough as we disassemble I'm just creating assembly instructions in reverse. The vast majority of this thing is intact and original and all we need to do is replace rotted wood and insulation.
The biggest change we plan on making is replacing the dark wood paneling on the interior walls with a light birch paneling. We've already cleaned up the original icebox fridge and I'll make sure the pump-action sink and two-burner propane stove is working. After a few camping trips we can decide if we want a modern fridge and powered water pump.
These seem to be very, very rare. As far as I can tell the company stopped making campers in 73. I've seen examples on-line of people doing some real hacky jobs of rehabing and often they brace the walls to prevent it from collapsing. My goal is to have this 100% functional and tow it with our Outback. We're in the flatlands of MN so that should be fine at least for a couple of years. We only use the car for camping these days anyway.
I'll keep posting here and other places our progress. I'm hoping if I post in enough places I'll stumble across somebody who knows more about these.
Here are a couple galleries of my progress over Labor Day Weekend:
https://imgur.com/a/1qyd9iX
https://imgur.com/a/bZt2zye
We hope to have this thing ready by spring or summer. My wife has talked for a while about getting a "canned ham" camper we could use as a guest house and we finally found one. The big idea here is that campers have always been "my thing" and she just enjoys going along with our two kids. With a vintage camper we'll finally have something we can both be excited about. This was a FB find for $1200 two weeks ago.
So far I'm finding that being a collapsable camper has some advantages when it comes to restoration. We've already taken off the walls and then it was just a matter of removing appliances, cabinets and benches. There's not much to the interior of this so all of that went really quick. It's now sitting covered in a tarp in my driveway just the top and bottom shells. The bottom-front has already been removed.
Over the winter we can rehab/redo most of this thing piece-by-piece, wall-by-wall. But that part of the project will wait until the weather gets too cold. Until then I'm going to start dismantling the top and bottom shells and start rebuilding those. The rot in the corners of the lower portion is really bad. The top isn't as bad but it's obviously been leaking a bit. And I likely need to peel off the skin and start taking the top apart to get at whatever's mounting it to the bottom so I can remove it. I'm taking copious photos and measurements as we go.
My hope is that a restoration will be sorta like building one of these from a kit. If I document well enough as we disassemble I'm just creating assembly instructions in reverse. The vast majority of this thing is intact and original and all we need to do is replace rotted wood and insulation.
The biggest change we plan on making is replacing the dark wood paneling on the interior walls with a light birch paneling. We've already cleaned up the original icebox fridge and I'll make sure the pump-action sink and two-burner propane stove is working. After a few camping trips we can decide if we want a modern fridge and powered water pump.
These seem to be very, very rare. As far as I can tell the company stopped making campers in 73. I've seen examples on-line of people doing some real hacky jobs of rehabing and often they brace the walls to prevent it from collapsing. My goal is to have this 100% functional and tow it with our Outback. We're in the flatlands of MN so that should be fine at least for a couple of years. We only use the car for camping these days anyway.
I'll keep posting here and other places our progress. I'm hoping if I post in enough places I'll stumble across somebody who knows more about these.
